The Glass Hammer [Paperback]

K. W. Jeter (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: Signet (January 6, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451164865
• ISBN-13: 978-0451164865
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,952,830 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Liturature disguised as SF, February 18, 2001

By 

Joseph & Rhonda Becker (Mora, MN, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Glass Hammer (Paperback)

Not having been real impressed with Jeter's take on Blade Runner, it was almost amazing that I gave The Glass Hammer a try. It was a difficult book to begin reading, and I almost gave up. But it paid off in the end. The Glass Hammer is undoubtably one of my favorite books of all time. Having just finished it -- again -- I felt compelled to let others know that if you can find this book, read it. The first 30-40 pages of it are a difficult read. Jeter writes a story about a man, Schuyler, who races across the Arizona desert night amid hailing laser missiles to deliver illegal computer chips to European buyers. He has become a minor celebrity by apparently being the father of the second coming of God. A production company is doing a bio of Schuyler and the story is writen as part present and part past, told as both video images and memories. Difficult to follow at first, but once you get into the flow, the story becomes engrossing, and the plot even more intricate. Well worth reading, even if you are not a fan of the genre.

4.0 out of 5 stars Invites comparison to Philip K. Dick, August 25, 2010

By 

TChris (Tzer Island) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Glass Hammer (Doctor Adder, Book 2) (Paperback)

Jeter has sometimes been compared to the incomparable Philip K. Dick. In the case of The Glass Hammer, the comparison is apt. The story has the religious overtones that characterize Dick's later novels. The novel's presentation of religion is ambiguous: often satirical yet, in the end, raising the possibility of true belief. The satire is hilarious: the Godfriends, a female religious sect, believe that they will give birth to the child of God if they become pregnant and so avoid pregnancy--until one of them becomes pregnant by the novel's protagonist. A more mainstream religious organization devotes extensive resources to the reconstruction of stained glass windows, using elaborate computer programs to calculate the probable arrangement of the glass before the windows were destroyed. The rest of the novel deals with a post-apocalyptic future in which industrial forces use the media and religion to control and placate the uneducated workforce.

The Glass Hammer is written in an interesting style, switching between conventional narrative and the format of a shooting script. Characterization is sometimes weak and logic is sometimes lost, but Jeter's ideas are powerful and the payoff at the end makes the novel worth reading.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Liturature disguised as SF, February 18, 2001

By 

Joseph & Rhonda Becker (Mora, MN, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Glass Hammer (Paperback)

Not having been real impressed with Jeter's take on Blade Runner, it was almost amazing that I gave The Glass Hammer a try. It was a difficult book to begin reading, and I almost gave up. But it paid off in the end. The Glass Hammer is undoubtably one of my favorite books of all time. Having just finished it -- again -- I felt compelled to let others know that if you can find this book, read it. The first 30-40 pages of it are a difficult read. Jeter writes a story about a man, Schuyler, who races across the Arizona desert night amid hailing laser missiles to deliver illegal computer chips to European buyers. He has become a minor celebrity by apparently being the father of the second coming of God. A production company is doing a bio of Schuyler and the story is writen as part present and part past, told as both video images and memories. Difficult to follow at first, but once you get into the flow, the story becomes engrossing, and the plot even more intricate. Well worth reading, even if you are not a fan of the genre.